Dear Hollywood, Please Make a Movie About Taylor Swift's Seawall

This week we learned that Taylor Swift was having some disagreements with her Rhode Island neighbors about building a seawall on her beach property. That’s a good enough setup for a movie! As were four other news items from this week. So we’ve gone ahead and turned them into five movie pitches.

The Beach House

In this bouncy romantic comedy from Nanette Burstein (Going the Distance), Anna Kendrick plays Nora, the beleaguered personal assistant of demanding young starlet Sadie Riley (Margot Robbie). When Sadie buys a gorgeous new summer retreat on the fictional New England island of Fletcher’s Point and immediately starts rearranging the beach to suit her needs, the locals are enraged. None more vocally than sexy, and secretly soulful, surfer Sammy (Chris Hemsworth), with whom Nora forms an instant, if prickly, rapport. As the battle between her boss and the people of Fletcher’s Point (including the venal mayor, played by John Michael Higgins, and the town busybody, played by Catherine O’Hara) heats up, Nora must decide where her loyalties lie. Summery and sassy, The Beach House will have you laughing and swooning until Labor Day.
Highline

Stuffy newspaper columnist Daniel Brecks (Steve Carell) is at war with New York. He’s convinced a recent decriminalization of marijuana will ruin the city, casting it back into crime-ridden chaos of the 1980s. Making matters worse, his Columbia student daughter Tessa (AnnaSophia Robb) starts dating Daniel's weed-dealing neighbor, Raj (Aziz Ansari). But when Daniel bumblingly interferes with an otherwise routine drug deal, all three find themselves involved in an uproarious action caper in the vein of Pineapple Express. Will Daniel reconcile with his daughter, get groovy with ganja, and spark something with Raj’s charming client Sally (Amy Ryan)? Find out in director Jody Hill’s riotous new film about toking one for the team.
How to Say You’re Sorry

Emile Hirsch plays aspiring young writer Shay LaGrande in this quirky indie comedy from writer/director Mike Mills (Beginners). When Shay, a Twitter-loving grad student, is publicly outed on the Internet for plagiarizing work from beloved author Darren Klue (David Cross), he sets about saying he’s sorry by any means necessary. But are his efforts just making matters worse? Allison Williams (as Callie, the blogger who breaks the story of Shay’s plagiarism) and Jeff Goldblum (as Shay’s oddball grad advisor) co-star in this wry, heartfelt comedy about learning to accept when you’ve done something wrong, and when you’ve been forgiven.
Dog Years

Arthouse auteur Kim Ki-duk directs this mystery-romance starring Bae Doona as Ji-woo, an intrepid young reporter who travels from Seoul to a remote town in the Taebaek mountains to investigate rumors that the cruel former boy-dictator (Byung-hun Lee) of an unnamed nation has been hiding out there under an assumed name, Min-jun. Despite the deeply troubling reports about what he might have done as a younger man, Ji-woo has soon fallen for the emotionally scarred, fragile Min-jun. Set against the backdrop of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, Dog Years tells a dark but ultimately moving tale of history and memory—and of progress, too.
Chambers

It’s inauguration day for New York’s new mayor, promising reformer Dale de Filippo (Bobby Canavale), and the city is celebrating. But then a massive blizzard hits and the mayor and his staff get stuck in City Hall. The snow is the least of their problems, though, as a team of highly trained terrorists with shadowy motives launch a siege on the building while the new mayor is stuck inside. It’s up to two NYPD cops, grizzled old-timer Nick Sacrimone (Al Pacino) and rookie Karen Diaz (Zoe Saldana) to keep their new mayor safe and figure out the terrorists’ plot. Featuring Denis O’Hare, as recently deposed billionaire mayor Arthur Greene, and Olivia Wilde, as de Filippo’s steely, mysterious press secretary Alicia Spires, Antoine Fuqua’s Chambers is a political action thriller that will blow you away.